THE DAILY WHIP: FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 2011

H.Res. __ - Rule providing for consideration of H.R. 2 - Patient's Rights Repeal Act; H.Res. 9 – Instructing certain committees to report legislation replacing the Affordable Care Act; and H.Res. __ - Relating to the status of certain actions taken by Members-Elect (Rules) The Rules committee has recommended a Rule that provides for consideration of both H.R. 2 and H.Res. 9 . The closed Rule would provide for 7 hours of general debate on H.R. 2 and allows no amendments to the legislation. The Rule also includes language that would give the Budget committee Chairman the authority to deem that H.R. 2 has no cost, despite the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office’s report that adoption of H.R. 2 would increase the deficit by $230 billion over ten years. The Rule would also provide for 1 hour of general debate on H.Res. 9 and allows one amendment to the Resolution, the Matheson Amendment.

Finally, The Rule would provide for a separate vote on a resolution ratifying some of the actions taken by Reps. Fitzpatrick and Sessions, before they were officially sworn in. The Resolution would correct all vote totals, subtracting their votes from the final tallies. It would also ratify the committee assignment of Mr. Sessions, who was not an official Member when we was assigned to the Rules committee, as well as ratify all bill introductions and non-voting participation (including reading of the Constitution).

Matheson Amendment – Would expand instructions to the committees of jurisdiction to include a permanent fix to the Medicare Physician payment formula, or Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR).

The Daily Quote

“A new CBO estimate released Thursday forecasts that repealing the [health care] law would increase federal budget deficits by roughly $230 billion from 2012 to 2021. In addition, the CBO says, the Republican-sponsored repeal legislation ‘would increase federal deficits in the decade after 2019’ by about half a percent of gross domestic product. U.S. GDP currently stands at about $14.7 trillion.”